Reptile & Amphibian Forums

CAPE COD TIMES (Hyannis, Massachusetts) 06 April 08 Salamanders surface in the spring (K.C. Myers)
Cummaquid: If you ran into a spotted salamander, you'd suspect it escaped from the exotic section of a pet shop. It's just too dramatic for flinty New England.
Yet the dark blue-black salamander with striking white spots and about the length of a large spoon isn't even threatened. They live among us. It's just that they live under rocks or logs in low-lying forests. They only come out at night to eat and, in the spring, after a soaking rain to mate.
They will actually trek long distances after a heavy rain to lay their eggs in vernal pools and ponds.
And right now is the best time to see them.
Ian Ives, director of the Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary in Cummaquid, led a group tour of the vernal pools at the sanctuary yesterday. Vernal pools can be several feet or several yards long, he said. They contain no fish because they often dry out. In fact, most pools dry out by July.
The pool where the group spent the most time yesterday was about hip deep and filled with small bushes that were being consumed by voracious vines. The vine's gray branches were turning green, announcing the impending season.
But it was in the depths of the small pool that wholly different signs of spring were happening.
You could blink and miss these mucky pools. Yet they are the only breeding grounds for many frogs, salamanders and invertebrate wildlife, Ives said.
Fairy shrimp, a delicate feathery pink invertebrate found in abundance during yesterday's plunge into the pool, spend their entire lives in vernal pools. They lay eggs before they die. The eggs survive through the winter in the muck, Ives said.
Wood frogs and several species of salamanders use these pools to lay their eggs. The eggs of the frogs and salamanders grow into gelatinous sacks that float on the surface. The sacks are flecked with eggs and, judging from the examples presented by Ives yesterday, look like an amorphous blob of Jello containing capers.
"That is cool but really gross," said Ian Cole, 8, of Osterville.
The wildlife in the pools and the pools themselves are important, disappearing habitats for many birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, some of them state-listed rare species, Ives said.
There is a way to help protect them from development, he said.
One can certify a vernal pool with the Massachusetts Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program by proving the presence of one or more species that are dependent on the pools for breeding or for life.
Many school groups certify pools as a way to protect and to observe wildlife, Ives said.
Once certified, the pools and their boundaries cannot be filled in and altered, Ives said.
If you think you have a vernal pool near you, contact the Natural Heritage program at 508-792-7270, ext. 200 or go to www.state.ma.us/dfwele/dfw/nhesp/heritage.htm.
www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080406/NEWS/804060324

METROWEST DAILY NEWS (Framlingham, Massachusetts) 06 April 08 March of the amphibians
Framingham: A crowd of nearly 60 people turned out for tours of amphibian migration to vernal pools in north Framingham Friday in an annual tradtiion known as Big Night.
Each spring, during the first rainy night with temperatures over 40 degrees, wood frogs, spring peepers and spotted salamanders emerge from their frozen underground winter shelters to crawl to nearby vernal pools. The pools are the same pools were they began life as tadpoles.
Once in the pools, the amphibians mate over the course of the next week and then leave the pool to return to the forest. Salamanders and wood frogs can live for several years, repeating this ritual each spring.
Some communities, including Framingham and Lincoln, close roads near migration routes to decrease the number of critters squished by traffic.
Though Big night sometimes happens in one massive wave it often is dragged out over several nights. Friday night, observers saw few animals off Hemenway Road as some had already moved early in the week. Many of the people out Friday night in Framingham attended a vernal pool workshop last month to learn about the delicate cycle of these big puddles and sign up for an e-mail alert list, notifying when the tours would happen.
Once the frogs have moved into the vernal pools, the unmistakable quacking of wood frogs and high-pitch peep of spring peepers is a signal that spring has finally arrived.
www.metrowestdailynews.com/homepage/x295147952

BOSTON GLOBE (Massachusetts) 07 April 08 Why did the salamander cross the road? (Carol Stocker)
Photo: A spotted salamander crosses Moose Hill Road in Sharon one night last week (Barry Chin)
Sharon: "It's slimy and amazing!" said 11-year-old Michael Kennedy after ferrying a spotted salamander safely across the road on a damp night last week.
He and a half-dozen of his cousins from Walpole scanned Moose Hill Street with flashlights, questing for salamanders along the road that runs through the 2,000-acre Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary.
His uncle, Stewart Sullivan, said his family has been bringing their children here for generations on the first warm wet nights of early spring, searching for - and protecting - salamanders that emerge and march to vernal pools to lay their eggs.
Salamanders are homely but appealing creatures. With bulging eyes and mouths that turn up into permanent smiles, they look a bit like moist Muppets.
While half the state's 11 native salamander species are listed as threatened or of special concern, some, such as the spotted salamander, have turned out to be surprisingly common. A formidable 8 inches long with neon yellow spots in a pattern unique to each individual, the spotted salamander is one of New England's best-kept secrets because it lives underground.
About the only time to see it is on rainy nights when the temperatures are above 40 degrees, between mid-March through this week. That's when they surface to march on stubby little legs to vernal pools to reproduce, said Stafford Madison of the Boston office of the US Environmental Protection Agency. Also on the march are their rarer cousins, the chocolate brown Jefferson salamander and the smaller, blue-spotted salamander.
Some towns, such as Sharon and Framingham, will allow key roads near vernal pools to be closed on prime salamander migration routes a few nights a year, but peak nights are hard to predict. Because they must remain moist at all times to breath through their naked skin, these three types of mole salamanders won't leave their tunnels if conditions turn too dry or windy, as well as too cold, said state aquatic ecologist Marea Gabriel in a phone interview.
If weather conditions are just right, and most years they are, thousands can surface at once and head for the pool, sometimes following one another nose-to-tail like elephants in a circus. When this happens, it's called a Big Night. When there's no one perfect night, they will venture forth a few at a time over many nights.
On Big Nights at the vernal pools, aquatic swirling balls - or "a congress of salamanders" - can collect, with males rubbing up against females as part of courtship. "They're all together turning and twisting in the water," said Christine Turnbull, Moose Hill sanctuary director, "but you need a strong light to see it through the rain spattered water surface."
Sexy time for salamanders is a virginal affair, however. First the males drop cottony wads called spermatophers in the pool and then the females pick up the sperm with their cloacal lips and use it to lay fertilized eggs, which, in the case of spotted salamanders, are in very firm, gelatin-like masses. (Blue-spotted salamanders lay eggs singly, while Jefferson salamanders lay long egg masses attached to vegetation.)
Most spotted salamanders live in woods within a half-mile of the vernal pools where they were born. These are depressions that temporarily fill with water in spring but usually turn to mud or dry leaves by summer. This means there are no fish populations to feast on the salamanders eggs.
But there's a trade-off.
The young hatchlings are in a race against time to become air breathing before the pools dry up, which is why their parents try to mate as early in spring as weather allows. If there's not enough rain in a given year, an entire generation of salamanders can literally evaporate. Since individual salamanders can live 20 years, the species can survive a couple of dry springs in a row.
Automobiles are a greater threat, and homeowners and developers who fill in vernal pools or cut down surrounding woods are the greatest threat of all.
Though some vernal pools are no bigger than table tops, they are hugely productive as rich nurseries for salamanders, small frogs, toads and invertebrates such as fairy shrimp that are called "obligate breeders" because they can reproduce nowhere else.
For optimal protection by state and town legislation, most vernal pools need to be certified by the state Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program. "But most have yet to be certified, so some salamander watchers submit photos of breeding activity in vernal pools to help document and preserve the pools," said wetland consultant Tom Palmer of Milton. (Visit nhesp.org or call 508-389-6371 for more information on vernal pools and their certification).
Warm, rainy spring nights also bring out the other vernal pool breeders such as wood frogs and those loud spring peepers. Last week, Kennedy cousin Abigail Sullivan, 13, was gently poking a wood frog to keep him moving across the road toward a vernal pool. "Have to keep going!" she crooned. "Almost there!"
Why did the salamander cross the road?[/

BROOKLINE JOURNAL (New Hampshire) 11 April 08 Caution salamanders X-ing (Marc Smith)
They tend not to follow designated crosswalks and have little defense against oncoming vehicle traffic, nonetheless salamanders are making their way across New Hampshire roadways in droves.
The warm and wet weather of early spring is the mating season for the yellow-spotted salamander, a period that tends to last between one to two weeks.
The animals emerge from underground lairs beneath logs, stones or other forest debris — where much of their lives are spent — and march to vernal pools — temporary collections of water — looking for a mate.
In the process of mating, the males leave droplets called spermatophores, along the edges of the vernal pools. The female salamanders nestle up to the spermatophores with their underbody to achieve fertilization and then lay egg masses to develop in the vernal pools and return to their homes in the ground.
Gerald Coffey of Hollis, a salamander enthusiast, is surprised that many people are unaware of these abundant creatures.
“One thing that is so interesting to me is that there are these very unusual and unique creatures all around the Hollis and Brookline area, and so many people have never even seen them,” he said.
There are 12 known species of salamander in New Hampshire, and the yellow-spotted is the most common. Coffey said the wealth of relatively untouched land in the Hollis and Brookline offer it prime habitat.
Over the last decade, Coffey — a high school math teacher — has analyzed local salamander activity and has spent nights searching for the creatures and documenting their travel patterns.
They typically leave their burrows once a year, on a wet and warm night, and set out on the mission to breed in a vernal pool.
Because they remain hidden underground for much of the year and usually only surface in the dark of night, they often go undetected.
But they are certainly out there, said Mike Marchand, a wildlife biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game, all you have to do is look. “If you search some relatively intact forest areas and you locate a vernal pool, you have a good shot of finding some of these species.”
The distance of migration to vernal pools can be up to a quarter mile, no easy expedition for this stubby-legged creature, he said. Often times these migratory paths intersect with public roadways, which can be deadly for the small animals.
Drivers may have difficulty seeing the tiny creatures, which Coffey said, resemble twigs, and they get caught where the rubber meets the road.
“We have a tendency to put roads on wet areas, so basically there are roads across salamander migration paths,” said Coffey. “I’ve gone out and counted 20 or 25 run over on certain roads.”
Migratory paths throughout Hollis, he has discovered, are across Rocky Pond Road, North Pepperell Road and parts of Worcester Road. “Basically any road that goes through a wet area, there is a good probability that you will see them.”
Some towns in Massachusetts have taken action to ensure that the migration routes are protected during the mating season; a few have gone as far to close roadways on nights when high salamander traffic is expected.
Neither Hollis nor Brookline has any such protection measures, however, Coffey has identified some of the salamander crossings with signs to make drivers aware.
He recommends that those driving on the warm, rainy nights of early and mid-April keep an eye out and yield for these tiny creatures as they take their annual journey.
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Spotted salamander
State Rank Status: Widespread and secure.
Distribution: Throughout New Hampshire
Description: A large dark salamander measuring 4.5-7.5 inches. Has up to 50 round yellow or orange spots arranged irregularly down the back and sides. Base color is generally black or bluish-black.
Commonly Confused Species: Blue spotted salamander.
Habitat: Mixed woodlands with slow moving streams, swamps, or vernal pools. Adults spend their time underground or under logs, boards, or stones.
Life History: Warm spring nights trigger movements to breeding pools where jelly masses containing 100-200 eggs are attached to submerged sticks and vegetation. Usually breeds in pools that do not contain predatory fish. Hibernate in the ground or under rotting stumps.
Conservation Threats: Loss of upland and vernal pool habitat, road mortality during migratory seasons.
— NH Fish and Game
Caution salamanders X-ing